Sound: Giraffes Hum, And It's Actually Audible To The Human Ear

Sure. Giraffes seem like silent, rather stoic creatures with their incredibly long necks, sanding in at about 6 feet tall. But guess what? They have their own voices, too. What's even more interesting is that these sounds are slightly detectable to the human ears, contrary to previous beliefs.

Previous studies have found that these creatures relay on a system that exudes fission, fusion and social structure, heavily relying on vocal communication to exchange information. In this particular study now, researchers were able to take it a step even further. While previous research indicated that giraffes made sounds similar to elephants that are undetectable to the human ears, these new findings suggest otherwise.

Researchers conducted a comprehensive investigation regarding the vocal interaction among giraffes that collected information from captive species during the day and night. Then, the experts narrowed their assessments on the infrasonic, tonal and sustained vocalizations; in the end, this added up to eight years worth of data that consisted of more than 947 hours of audio data from three zoos in Europe. Researchers measured both the temporal and spectral properties of the acoustic signs to match a precise set of acoustic indicators. The results showed that humming from giraffes was 92 Hz in frequency, according to Wired, which is still audible to humans at a rather low frequency.

"These results show that giraffes do produce vocalizations, which, based on their acoustic structure, might have the potential to function as communicative signals to convey information about the physical and motivational attributes of the caller," the researchers concluded, via Time.

More information regarding the findings can be seen via BioMed Central.

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